We have just finished the Global Humanitarian Action for 2013 event, to strengthen regional support for global humanitarian appeals. We and our humanitarian partners are seeking US$10.4 billion this year to help more than 57 million people in 24 countries with some of world’s most pressing crises. We need donors to give generously and urgently.

In the last year alone, I visited more than 40 countries from Syria to Sudan, DR Congo,
Niger, Afghanistan and Myanmar, and saw and heard for myself the terrible conditions that families face and their harrowing stories - loss of loved ones and homes. We need to give people help and support, so they can survive.

Brazil has steadily increased its contributions to international humanitarian work over the past few years, and we saw the highest financial contribution from the country so far in 2012, when Brazil gave over $50 million to help millions of people in crisis around the world.

Not too far from here, in Haiti, many people have benefited from Brazil’s contribution of more than $21 million since the devastating earthquake claimed over 200,000 lives and left some 2 million people homeless and in desperate need of aid. I thank Brazil and other donors in the region for helping to save lives and strengthen humanitarian efforts.

Fourteen other countries in the region, including Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, have also contributed to the Central Emergency Response Fund, a fund which allows us to kick-start humanitarian response as soon as disasters strike.

Earlier today, I met Government officials including the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, to discuss ways of strengthening the humanitarian partnership between the United Nations and Brazil. I stressed the importance of Brazil’s growing influence regionally and globally, and discussed how OCHA can help support and strengthen national humanitarian preparedness, coordination and response systems.